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Continued from page 3

"Across the industry, medical utilization has trended down in the past few years compared to historical levels,” said Janice Knight, senior vice president and chief pricing actuary at Health Care Service Corp., which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

In Texas, for example, the Blue Cross plan there “is reducing premium base rates in 2012 by 4 percent for fully insured group segments (2-150 employees), and 2 percent for most individual under age 65 business,” according to a January internal memo obtained by Forbes.

“The economic downturn is also likely contributing to people accessing fewer medical services,” Knight said. “We anticipate that this may result in pent-up demand driving up utilization in the near future, however."